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1.7.7-Manypalimpsests
Les Miserables Vol. I: Book VII: Chapter VII. The Traveller Arrives and Provides for his Return Oh Valjean. Oh Valjean. Oh Valjean. You are the most ridiculous man, I love you. Fourteen hour trip of utter fail, finally get to town and proceed to go “flump” on a pool table. This is an extremely funny chapter. There’s moments of horror in it, but everything is so beautifully paced it’s impossible not to giggle and giggle and keep giggling. Oh Valjean. This is not your finest hour by any stretch of the imagination. Well, okay, the very very very end is pretty badass in a low key way. But otherwise! Really, though, it’s just so deftly done. The conversation with the landlady is perfect, partly because it is, really, the exact same conversation he’s been having throughout this entire absurd expedition. It’s got that rhythm, the pace of a conversation that all parties have had over and over and over but that they have to go through again because as tedious as it can get, the process of communication it facilitates is vital. There are so many parts of this I’m just never going to be over. The bit where Valjean is lost and meets a man with a lantern - “After some hesitation, he determined to speak to this man, but until he had looked before and behind, as if he were afraid that somebody might overhear the question he was about to ask.” Oh, Valjean. It’s funny, even as it’s also kind of terrible. It’s awful to be so tired and feel so bad and so scared that being heard by anyone other than the person you mean to hear you is terrifying, and you don’t really even want to speak to them! But yeah, it’s also pretty hilarious. I love how everyone Valjean runs into through this whole chapter clearly has their own concerns and don’t care too much about Valjean’s. Valjean’s thoughts are so overwhelming to him that they seem like the only thing in the world – but the people he meets don’t know them and don’t know him and don’t much mind that they don’t. I love that the old man is perfectly happy to run off on a tangent of local history, explaining the peculiarities of Arras and its present judicial arrangements. The lawyer Valjean talks to is clearly bored with the whole of the assizes. There’s nothing interesting there, not to him. All the legal issues are clear cut and he’s sure he knows what the verdicts will be. For him, the people whose lives hinge on those verdicts aren’t really interesting. (He probably wouldn’t be as rude if he knew he were talking to someone whose life hinges on these court proceedings – he’s indifferent, not horrible – but he doesn’t know, so.) But those outcomes are vitally important to Valjean, which forces the reader to simultaneously pass over the woman who killed her infant, because the plot is moving on, because that’s not what Valjean came here for, and remember that this is a pivotal moment for her, too. What happens at the court matters. And then there’s the court officer. Who also knows nothing about Valjean and doesn’t much care to. He’s not rude, he’s just not especially interested. The people Valjean listens to discuss the case and the court proceedings also don’t much care. Everyone in this chapter has a life, and Valjean is moving through the overlapping circles their lives make. Commentary Doeskin-pantaloons Your reaction to this chapter fascinates me. There are definitely parts of the Brick which I find unintentionally hilarious, but this isn’t one of them. I do see what you mean, however, about the juxtaposition between Valjean’s inner angst, and everyone else just going about their day to day lives, and not even knowing that this day is the be all and end all of his. It’s an interesting commentary on the way people think and interact, but I didn’t think of it as funny. I will have to reread again. =) Manypalimpsests (reply to Doeskin-pantaloons) I think it’s entirely intentionally funny! Les Miserables is a seriously funny novel. It’s a serious novel, but it’s also a funny novel. That’s how I’ve always read it, anyway. :D Kingedmundsroyalmurder This entire commentary is excellent, but I am mostly reblogging for that last sentence, which is gorgeous.